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I love cooking for people, but tend to be nervous about it. I also haven’t done much of it since I moved to Denver three years ago, but I usually do a good bit when I’m visiting my family in Bangalore. On my most recent visit I made my folks risotto with clams. My brother said, “It’s like khichdi but Italian.”

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I cry almost every episode of Netflix’s Chef’s Table. I think it’s easily the best original series they’ve made.

If you don’t know, Chef’s Table devotes each episode to a different world-renowned chef. Some of them have Michelin stars, some don’t—but judging by Season 1, they’re all compelling, driven, philosophically-minded people. And some may not be as famous as other chefs who might have been invited to be profiled in this way, as this article on Ana Roš suggests.

There is something odd about having this relationship with fine dining when I really don’t fine dine. At all.

And something precarious too, because food as art only ever throws into relief food as utterly basic to living—not “a way of” of living, as though you could find a beautiful way to be destitute.

And yet I’m weeping over these chef’s creations, which I’m not ever going to eat. Part of it must be the honesty of it all, naked stories of struggle and triumph. And part of it is—not the dishonesty exactly—but what’s lurking under all of the very articulate—maybe over-articulated—philosophies which really are more like political statements.

Some of the weeping happened during the Dan Barber episode in Season 1, who comes off surprisingly unlikeable—not maybe in general, but to me. Barber goes into this thing about how he can’t really leave his kitchen in the hands of others and he has to be there, always. I think what I didn’t like about him is what I don’t like about myself.

Once upon a time I had a food blog but it disappeared. Then on Sunday I found myself stress baking, tweaking a recipe from my mother which is quite perfect on its own. It gave birth to this beautiful mini-loaf of cake and half a half a dozen cupcakes.

More butter, less sugar is what I did. It’s the dates. They vary in sweetness, so you may find yourself wanting more sugar than I did. The highest quantity is what’s listed on my mother’s version; the least is mine. Somewhere in between will work. And, yes, the smallest quantity of butter would, in fact, do. But why skimp.

You may call this a bread if you like. You may . . . indeed. However, it is not a bread. Read More